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THE ROOTS OF ANTI-JUDAISM IN THE CHRISTIAN ENVIRONMENT
WHY THE CHRISTIAN FAITH NEEDS JUDAISM
Card. Roger Etchegaray
Does Christianity need Judaism? When I was a boy, a question like this would have seemed
to me unusual, probably not even worth asking. In my small Basque village, I never met a
«wandering Jew». Once a year, the liturgy of Holy Friday made me pray «for the unfaithful
Jews». When my mother took me to Bayonne to buy a good dress, from the tailor whom she
said was a Jew, I was surprised to meet a man like all the others; and it was he, himself who
packaged my first tunic! In the Seminary, on the «teaching of contempt» there prevailed that
of the insignificance: the Jew did not count as anything, and I never perceived any religious
need for Judaism.
I felt the first shock in the year of my priestly ordination, exactly 50 years ago, when I don't
really know how, but there came to my attention the «10 points of Seelisberg», elaborated in
Switzerland by a small group of Jews and Christians. Today, that text that was then so
prophetic and courageous, now seems very banal. In 1965, as an expert of the Second
Vatican Council, I admired the sweet abstinence of Cardinal Bea unfurl to vote on the
declaration of the Jews in Nostra Aetate. Eight years later, when I was the Archbishop of
Marseilles, a great port city in which there peacefully lived 80 thousand Jews and 80
thousands Moslems, I was with three other French bishops, it was a confirmation of one of
the most open orientations on the relations with Jews that was offered, not without
reflections, from an Episcopate. But, it was mostly from within the international Committee
of liaison between the Catholic Church and the Jewish world where I learned up to which
point the dialogue was difficult from one side and the other because of a profound
asymmetry between the protagonists.
This preamble allows me to enter without delay into the heart of the question with vigor and
rigor. Does Christianity need Judaism? The spontaneous response is yes, a sure and decisive
yes, a yes which expresses the vital and visceral need. But, naturally, I cannot but answer in
the name of my Church, "scrutinizing" its "mystery" according to the beautiful expression of
Nostra Aetate, in the full respect of the various ways in which Judaism sees and defines
itself. For me, Christianity cannot think of itself without Judaism, it cannot do without
Judaism. From the beginning of his pontificate (March 12, 1979) in Magonza, Pope John
Paul II dared to declare «Our two religious communities are tied to the same level of their
identity». I remind once again (I was there) his striking words in the great Synagogue of
Rome on April 13, 1986: «The Jewish religion is not to us "extrinsic" but, in a certain way, it
is "intrinsic" to our religion. Therefore we have towards it relations which we do not have
with any other religion. You are our favorite brothers, and, in a certain way, we could say
our older brothers».
These words, then, do not have anything new or audacious; they are inspired by the Pauline
image of the Letter to the Romans (11, 16-24) of the good olive which is Israel on which the
branches of the savage olive, who are the pagans, were grafted. And Saint Paul, the ancient
Pharisee turned «apostle of nations» would then say to the pagan-Christian: «Do not boast
over the branches; remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports
you» (Rm. 11, 18)...and the Jew who brings you. And is it not in the Gospel of John, that
there is the want to imbue it with anti-Judaism, that Jesus solemnly proclaims to the
Samaritan: «Salvation comes from the Jews?» (John 4, 22)? If it is really like this, how do
we explain the fact that in the course of centuries so many Christians lived as though they
had forgotten their roots, or worse despising their older brothers? I well understand the
reaction of Rabbi Askenazi who said: «We are not even separated brothers, why have we
never met». In fact, we all feel the painful wound which Fadiey Lovosky meaningfully called
«the laceration of absence».
But then, by way of what miracle to Jews and Christians meet after 2,000 years, or get
together to examine the upside down relations they have had in the course of history? Why
was there a need for the Shoa to open the era of dialogue? To tell the truth, did the break not
start with the "scandal" of the cross of Christ? The past inspired by Jules Isaac near John
XXIII is certainly not extraneous to the starting of a late and still timid spring. Now we start
to open our conscience to the fact that our Christian identity is an identity received by others,
and that this other is the elected people, which exists only as derived by God. The act in
progress goes a lot further than the simple constatation of the carnal Jewishness of Jesus,
now easily affirmed on the part of everyone, with all the cultural consequences and cultural
in the liturgy and in the life of the Church, today amply conceded to and without
embarrassment of people, be it Jewish or Christian. John Paul II, yet again, when receiving
last April 11, the Pontifical Biblical Commission recalled that we cannot fully express the
mystery of Christ without going back to the Old Testament. From the second century, against
Marcione, the Church gave witness to this vital relationship, which then followed very
obscure, if not camouflaged. On my part, I love reminding that the Catholic Church
consistently celebrates the feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. And I will never
cease to discover at which point my prayer, including the prayer which Christ taught his
disciples, the "Our Father," is filled with Jewish citations and psalmodies. All within me
breathes the mercy and the wisdom of the anawim, the poor of the Lord.
But this rootedness, however important, leaves still on the threshold of the problem, of the
real problem against which I hit and for which I fight myself. That which frustrates me, that
which today upsets me, is the perseverance of the Jewish people, notwithstanding the
pogroms, its survival after the cremation ovens. Isn't that a witness of the invincible
permanent vocation, of a timely meaning for the world, but especially in the same bosom of
the Church? This is much more than discovering the richness of a common patrimony; it is
scrutinizing in the design of God the mission which the Jewish people still have to and must
always fulfill. What does it mean, to me, Christian, this permanent face to face which is the
Jew? What does it mean for my Church this Jewish people that does not cease to make the
Old Testament leap to a time which I though had become once and for all the time of the
New Testament? Affirming, with Saint Paul, that the second Alliance did not cancel the first,
why are «the gifts of God irrevocable?» (Romans 11,29), the Church reaches the point of
recognizing in Judaism a saving function after Christ? For my Christian conscience, the
comparison with the Jewish figure that up until now we had dissimulated if not undone, with
this Synagogue in front of which we had closed our eyes, requires at the same time a
profound mystery and a gigantic challenge.
Speaking of "mystery" in the way of Saint Paul (Romans 11,25) means to recognize that the
ultimate meaning of the history of salvation escapes us since its key is in God, and to admit
that not all is clear, because not all is accomplished. Certainly, the Church clearly proclaims
that Jesus Christ is the sole Savior of the world; and lives all of his being in his death and
resurrection. But, is not the constant recurring of Israel the sign of this which is missing for
the full realization of his mission? In front of the now of the Church, Israel is the witness of
the not yet, of a Messianic time not fully concluded. The Jewish people and the Christian
people thus, find themselves in a situation of contention or better yet of reciprocal emulation.
When we Christians are happy with the now, the Jews remind us of the not yet, and this
fecund tension is in the heart of the entire life of the Church, up to the point of reaching the
Eucharistic liturgy, when every time the Church launches its striking yell: «Come, Lord
Jesus». The Church announces, it already prefigures the "Kingdom," the city in which God
will be «all in everyone», as Saint Paul said (1 Cor 15,28). It comforts us to know that this
hidden Kingdom, this infinite space of salvation offered to everyone, surpasses by a great
deal the visible limits of the Church. That which is not the "Sacrament", the place in which
the Kingdom is celebrated by those who have already received it.
Karl Barth said: «The decisive question is not "what can the Synagogue be without Jesus
Christ?" but instead "what is the Church if for so long it finds in front of it an Israel which is
a stranger to it?"». Said in another way, for the Church the constant recurring of Israel is not
only a problem of external relations that need to be developed, but a problem of internal
relations that need to be deepened, a problem which touches the very being. The path on
which we find ourselves runs along a hairpin, yet to be fully explored by the exigists and by
the theologians, but it is on this road, I believe, which we must proceed on, otherwise the
Judeo-Christian dialogue will remain superficial, limited and full of mental reserves. This
dialogue, it has been said, has just left the middle ages and cannot proceed if the interlocutors
on one side and on the other side do not take account of the contemporaniety of the other.
Christianity is the tree which grows from the seed of Judaism and covers all the earth with its
branches, but the fruit of the tree contains again the same seed. In the Divine Comedy, Dante
invites the Jews to abandon their hopes: «Leave every hope». Franz Rosenzweig, shocked by
that verse, commented: «When the Jew will appear in front of the celestial throne, he will be
asked just one question: "did you hope in redemption?"» All the other questions, added
Rosenzwieg, «are for you Christians. From now on, let's prepare ourselves together, in faith,
to appear in front of our Judge». To prepare ourselves together, we must consider ourselves
all inheritors of the Bible, but I believe that to put to good and to fruit this heredity,
Christians have in a particular way a need for Jews because the Jews have with Scripture a
sort of carnal familiarity, because on the contrary of every dualism which emboldens, they
are witnesses of the living unity of man called by God, so that they remain the people which
destroyed idols and denounced ideologies, both ancient and modern. The Jewish Bible makes
the entire world hear the voice of one God. Even where there do not live any Jews, but the
Bible is proclaimed by the Church, the Jew is spiritually present because he is perceived by
the nations which receive the divine Word as belonging to the people for whom the Lord
made himself known on earth. If the target of neopaganism, the profound root of antiSemitism, is the Bible which reveals in every man the image of God, we must today more
than ever be a witness of our common faith of the Word and the Laws which structure every
human conscience. We must climb together the holy mountain of Sinai and up there hold
hands without batting an eye in front of the figure of God, completely occupied, like in a
night of hurricane, to receive the water and fire from the sky to let ourselves be purified.
Must we not all be «dripping with the word of God», as Peguy said to his Jewish friend,
Bernard Lazare? Are we not all like those primitives who received the Decalogue and thus
becoming the true civilization of humanity?
This mysterious difference and this incredible kinship between the Jews and the Christians
brings us together on the road of penance, of the teshuva. It is the fundamental biblical
teaching, common to all of us. Because, Jews and Christians, we are all sinners, we go
through history in the dualism of the Church-Synagogue produced by the hardening of each
of us, each one being internal to the hardening of the other. It is in my spiritual experience in
front of Christ, I tried to measure and to understand the distance which separated me from
the Jew, without ever thinking of making of the Jew a "potential Christian."
It is true that Jesus divides us, that he is amongst us a sign of contradiction, a foot hole. I
really like the astonishing formula of S. Ben Chorin: «The faith of Jesus unites us but the
faith in Jesus separates us». Therefore, I dare to say - it is the profound truth of every
paradox - that Jesus unites us in the same instant that he divides us. Because this laceration
deals only with us. A Buddhist, a Hindu, have no reason to be called upon because of Jesus
Christ: they never encounter him in their history. Even the Moslems, just barely touch upon
him. But us, Jews and Christians, whether we want to or not, sooner or later, we are forced to
ask ourselves in front of the world how to deal together with this internal laceration that there
is amongst us, this laceration that is all ours and which provoked the first schism, that the
exigist (Claude Tresmontant) called «the prototype of schisms» inside one sole body of the
family of God? Because, us and them, are the only ones who are able to pronounce the
divine Word, which is spoken to all men, we also hang together on the same Word and the
same witness of the same promise for all of humanity. In this sense, even the future of the
ecumenical movement between the different Christian Churches is tied to the knowledge that
the bond with Judaism is the test of faith of Christianity to the same God. F. Lovsky, in the
last chapter of his book, speaks of the Judeo-Christian encounter in the intercession. And he
states that our prayers - when we think of us and them - they are the prayers of our common
sufferings and of our reciprocal resentments, but deplores the fact that they are not also the
prayers of our complementary vocations. For as different as our prayers seem, they are
related and must become sisters.
For my part, I never cease praying for the day when God will be «all in everything», (1 Cor.
15, 28), Jews and non-Jews. Such is the celestial Jerusalem that our prayer must speed the
coming, the prayer of all of us in exile anywhere in the world ...also in Rome!
Oh! Jerusalem, preferred by God, of you everyone can say: «Here is my mother, in you
everyone is born» (Psalm. 97), and the nations climb towards the light. Oh, Jerusalem, I walk
towards
you.
Oh Jerusalem, «Strong and compact city» where all the sons of Abraham are reunited and in
which the prayer for peace is concentrated (Psalm 122). Oh Jerusalem I walk towards you.
Oh! Jerusalem, whose hills cry of desolation and dance with hope, Mount Moriah and
Golgotha, Wall of the Temple and memorial Yad Vashem, empty sepulcher where the angel
invites us to look amongst the dead for He who is alive (Luke 24, 5).
Oh!
Jerusalem,
I
walk
towards
you.
Oh! New Jerusalem, you who descends from the Heavens dressed like a bride on her
wedding day, you who no longer have time, because you temple «is the Lord, the omnipotent
God and the Lamb» (cf. Apostles, 21)! Oh Jerusalem of the Heaven, we walk towards you.
Beyond every personal form of witness, I remain convinced that my Christian faith, in order
to be faithful to itself needs the Jewish faith. From every Christianizing theology on Judaism
and from every Jewishizing theology on Christianity, I tried to witness all that Martin Buber
expressed so well: it is the Alliance of the same living God who makes us exist, Jews and
Christians, and who creates a community beyond the breakage. «Judaism and Christianity writes professor Karl Thieme - are both eschatological, but at the same time they have a
place in the design of God. And from there derive the differences which separate the Jews
and the Christians and the relations which unite them».
If the other is «a mystery and a challenge», the difference is the same essence of our
encounter, and it is also the possibility of reciprocal listening and of mutual enrichment. Far
from distancing ourselves one from the other, let's not cease meeting around the Messiah.
Edmond Fleg teaches it to us in Listen Israel:
«And now together you are waiting
You that He comes and you that He returns;
But to Him you ask for the same peace
And your hands, whether He comes or He returns, to Him you tend to with the same Love
So then what does it matter? From one and the other he comes
Let Him Come
Let Him Come!»
Let Him come? The same Edmond Fleg, in another book (Jesus as told by the wandering
Jew), stimulates everyone, Jews and Christians: «So that the Messiah comes, yell with me:
happy are those who will throw away their arms, because they will bear the Messiah».